While the increased pay would certainly help with motivation, it's not going to do a thing unless...

a.) administrators (and politicians) stop doing every asinine thing to interfere with how and what teachers teachb.) teachers are properly trained on how to present material as well as having adequate knowledge of their subject (and given chances and adequate funding to do such training periodically)c.) class sizes are decreased and classes are separated by ability

Hell, if I could have those three things happen (including being given adequate time and funding for b.) to happen to continue improving), I wouldn't need the pay raise (though it would, of course, be nice). Hell, I'd be willing to double my teaching hours for the same salary if it meant I could cut my class sizes in half and separate the halves based on ability and interest.

Granted, I'm not teaching in a US school system, so YMMV. But I have a feeling that those three things are pretty universal.

doglover:If we let them bet on the outcomes, and paid scientists athlete money, they would.

"And Dr. Filmore Bernstein has been traded to UC Berkeley. What effect do you think this will have on their salary cap, Nicolai?"

"Well Bernstein is one of the best theoretical physics hands-men out there, but UC Berkeley is already drowning in environmental science grad students. They may have to cut some of the team to make salary cap room."

"Won't that help their rivals at UCLA?"

"We'll just have to wait and see, Dave! That's what makes science education the best sport on earth!"

Yes, if an entire class has poor performance, then the teacher and his/her abilities need to be looked at, and assistance or discipline needs to be applied. However, if it is only a few, then maybe, just maybe the problem is not with the teacher but with the student. So, stop blaming us if your precious little snowflake is screwing around and not doing the work and then ends up failing. Do some damn parenting and help us out by not producing little shiat-heads. :p

mamoru:Hell, I'd be willing to double my teaching hours for the same salary if it meant I could cut my class sizes in half and separate the halves based on ability and interest.

Double? There are not enough hours in the day for me to double my teaching time. Sure, I do some days with 1 lesson. Tomorrow will be one such. But usually I've got the McDonald's schedule going on. 4-6 lessons at one of several public schools in the day, class size 32-40, followed by 4-6 more at night one on one with adult students.

It's grueling.

I'd be willing to halve my working hours or even reduce them to a third for a raise to real salary, though. It doesn't sound like a good offer phrased that way, but what it actually means is that your kid's one of a few dozen students I can focus on as opposed to one of over a 1000 kids I have to entertain without getting winded because I'm going to be up till midnight fixing people's sentences regardless of the effort I spend on that morning class.

@doglover, been there, done that. Unless you can get a full time contract at a single school, teaching English in general and specifically in Japan pretty much sucks. I'm very glad I'm don't teach English anymore.

But, "double" is a bit of an exaggeration, as I currently have 24 hrs of class time per week, and 48 would be impossible. Perhaps if I could drop a couple of classes (maybe my 7th grade math classes so I could focus solely on 10, 11, 12 biology classes) then double hours with half class sizes (so 36 hrs/wk) would be such a good thing.

Overall point is that smaller classes would be so nice that I'd rather have that than a salary increase.

A friend of line started teaching math at a local high school this year and he's already burnt out dealing with unruly kids and their dumb parents.

He writes up 6 to 10 kids a week and most of the are for telling them to put up their phones which makes them mad and they call him a mother farker.

Then the parents blame him for their little snow flake getting an F in his class and are just shocked and don't believe that their kids would lie and not do their home work or play with phones all day in class rather than paying attention to what is being taught.

Raise the pay to attract the people and raise the standards to get in. Yeah, I can see that works as long as the standards include in-depth knowledge of the topics being taught and screening tests to prove it. And as someone said, get the politicians out of the way to end the micromanaging. Let the good teachers teach!

Could try the same with Police Departments. (Minus the union "Protect them all or else" mentality though). Raise the salary to the point that many more try to become officers, and don't let anyone in that has broken the law in the past, get rid of anyone acting like a bully with a badge, etc.

Lets be realistic, when you pay people crap, you don't exactly get the cream of the crop applying...

No matter the outcome, we all win. If the scores go up (and stay up) then it proves that teacher saleries are too low. If not, it may prove that teachers are not the problem, and we need to start up elite schools for kids that want to perform and "dumb dumb" schools for the ones that scream out "when will I ever need to know this in real life" during class. Then let's try the experiment again, and see if raising saleries for teachers does anything.

There is a small chance that raising saleries actually reduces student performance. That would be a terrible, but facinating outcome.

Or we could try readkng to our kids. And reading ourselves so that they realize that education and scholarship are valuable. Kids pick up on that stuff. Raise a child in a dumb culture, you get an underperforming kid. Apple falling near tbe tree and all that.

Repeal the mandatory attendance laws and boot the ones that don't want to be there. I have a kid that is really enjoying driving every adult nuts, just for the attention. Totally disruptive in class, completely disengaged, dumb as a box of rocks, and is simply marking time until the magic age of emanicipation is reached. Everyone from case worker, to bio-parents, to foster parents, to teachers is fed up with the fact that all the adult hands are tied by laws that punish us instead of just turning the kid over to juvenile for the orange jumpsuit.

Evilnissan:A friend of line started teaching math at a local high school this year and he's already burnt out dealing with unruly kids and their dumb parents.

He writes up 6 to 10 kids a week and most of the are for telling them to put up their phones which makes them mad and they call him a mother farker.

Then the parents blame him for their little snow flake getting an F in his class and are just shocked and don't believe that their kids would lie and not do their home work or play with phones all day in class rather than paying attention to what is being taught.

Cameras in each class to keep students and teachers honest. Boot any kid who breaks the rules x number of times.

Seriously, just expel kids who won't put the phones down, let their parents figure out what to do for daycare.

fusillade762:FloydA: Would paying professional football, baseball, and basketball players $125K have any effect on their performance?

For the analogy to hold you'd have to measure the audience's performance.

No, you would have to measure the on field performance. Meaning what they are getting paid to do.

Teachers get paid to impart knowledge on the students.

/ paying CURRENT teachers twice as much wont help. paying BETTER people to walk away from their jobs to become teachers by making it pay six figures would. so when this fails, it wont have proven anything.// not trying to talk bad about current teachers, but the reason you get better doctors by paying them more is because the driven and or smart people chose that field because of the income potential.

DO NOT WANT Poster Girl:Evilnissan: A friend of line started teaching math at a local high school this year and he's already burnt out dealing with unruly kids and their dumb parents.

He writes up 6 to 10 kids a week and most of the are for telling them to put up their phones which makes them mad and they call him a mother farker.

Then the parents blame him for their little snow flake getting an F in his class and are just shocked and don't believe that their kids would lie and not do their home work or play with phones all day in class rather than paying attention to what is being taught.

Cameras in each class to keep students and teachers honest. Boot any kid who breaks the rules x number of times.

Seriously, just expel kids who won't put the phones down, let their parents figure out what to do for daycare.

Summercat:AmbassadorBooze: ... ones that scream out "when will I ever need to know this in real life" during class...

Perhaps the onus would be on the teachers to, I dunno, connect what they're trying to teach with real-world applications?

Half the stuff I wish I remembered well enough, that I was taught in highschool? I didn't find a use for it until about a year and a half ago. And my 10 year reunion is coming up.

I respect the coment (and that would probably work somewhat), but I I don't think we value education as a society enough. As for finding real world applications, I am a farmer and have found use for fractal analysis and low level calculus. I kept all my college textbooks, and the only ones I don't at least crack open once a year are the art history and english books. I am teching myself hobby level electronics and micro controller programming to build some automated equipment. So I believe it is more in the individual to use education, than to be told what value a particular topic is.

First of all- most people when entering a carrer field are smart enough to investigate things like salaries and benefits before they hire on, so its not like they were sideswiped with a job that didn't meet their financial expectations.

I would say yes, initially yes- performance would improve. You get more, there is a reasonable expectation that your scope of responsibility would increase so either (or your employer) feel the need to enhance your performance to justify that increase- which by the way-- will not address teacher burnout. After a few years when 125k has become the norm? Not really.

The national average wage index for 2011 was 42,979.61 which happens to be the national average for teachers as well. New York starting pay at 45K with a bachelors, and 55K with a masters. Keeping in mind the cost of living within the city of New York, I'd say their pay was right in line with national average. Keeping in mind there is a reasonable expectation of salary increases by teachers all across the United States, I'm not sure if the teachers of New York are special enough to warrant a 200+% increase in pay however. I probably need not mention the unfair advantage New York would have when hiring the best the nation has to offer, nor the stress of having to meet the standard to maintain your current position as a teacher in New York.

Any Farkers out there from NY care to weigh in on where they plan to get the extra money to pay for the increase in salaries (and retirement packages).

Yes, teachers should be paid more. But, if you really want student performance to increase, you have to find a way to increase the parent give a f*ck factor. That's a major part of the problem... And for crying out loud, stop teaching to the ridiculous SOL test! It's nothing but a handcuff.